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PHILADELPHIA — Three former employees of western Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell could soon join him in facing
the possibility of the death penalty.

City prosecutors confirmed yesterday that they were considering capital punishment in the cases of three workers at Gosnell’s
clinic. The three allegedly assisted the 70-year-old physician in seven abortions in which infants were born viable but then
killed by Gosnell.

Assistant District Attorneys Joanne Pescatore and Christine Wechsler said they had agreed with attorneys for the three — Lynda
Williams, 42, of Wilmington, Del.; Steven Massof, 48, of Pittsburgh; and Adrienne Moton, 33, of Upper Darby, Pa. — to extend
for 60 days yesterday’s deadline for prosecutors to notify the defense that death by lethal injection is possible.

Pescatore said the delay did not indicate that prosecutors were trying to negotiate plea agreements in which the former workers
would testify against Gosnell.

Rather, she said, it was to give both sides more time to investigate the complex case.

“We didn’t know enough, and they might want to tell us more things,” Pescatore said.

Massof’s attorney, Jeffrey M. Lindy, confirmed the 60-day extension but declined to comment. Attorneys for Moton and Williams
could not be reached to comment.

There was no extension for Gosnell. Prosecutors notified defense attorney Jack McMahon that they would seek a death sentence
if a jury found Gosnell guilty of first-degree murder in the seven abortions at his Women’s Medical Society clinic.

The prosecutors’ comments followed arraignments for Gosnell; his wife, Pearl, 50; and eight clinic workers charged with him
in January.

Neither Gosnell nor the other defendants held in prison in lieu of bail were in court for the arraignment.

The death-penalty notice does not lock the district attorney’s office into pursuing death for Gosnell.

Prosecutors often make last-minute offers to withdraw the death penalty if a defendant pleads guilty, waives all appeal rights,
and agrees to serve life in prison without possibility of parole.

In addition to seven counts of first-degree murder, Gosnell is charged with third-degree murder in the death in 2009 of a
patient given too much anesthesia by unqualified clinic staff.

The Gosnells and their eight employees were charged in January after the district attorney’s office released a 260-page grand-jury
report. The report alleged in horrific detail that Gosnell had performed illegal late-term abortions for poor women, in some
cases killing infants born viable by cutting their spines with scissors.